Our Struggles with Medicine. . .

Many of you, especially if you are on Facebook, have known that Kayla will not take oral medication.  Sigh.  She has four prescriptions:

• Septra:  an antibiotic to prevent pneumonia (PCP, a specific kind that she will be vulnerable to with a low immune system) that she needs to take twice a day on the weekends.
• Zofran:  anti-nausea medication for after her treatments--the carboplatin causes nausea.
• Miralax:  laxative--the vincristine causes constipation
• Ummm. . . something like Lordicaine (if I had energy, I would run downstairs and check to see what is called) --it is a numbing cream that we put on her skin over her port so that when they stick the needle in, she won't feel it.

So, the septra she is supposed to take twice a day on the weekends:  Having experienced the month of February with Kayla, I knew this was going to be a challenge.  When she was having very painful headaches in February, she got tired of taking ibuprofen so she just refused to take it anymore.  She will not take Tylenol to save her life.  She would rather be in excruciating pain forever than take medicine.

Our first Saturday trying to give her the liquid antibiotic was very exhausting to say the least.  I started out trying to be sneaky.  First, I put it in raspberry kefir.  Kefir is a drinkable yogurt that has a very tart taste.  I was sure that this would work.  She took one sip and pushed it away saying it was gross and that she wanted strawberry kefir.  So, I put a second dose in the strawberry kefir.  I got the same reaction.  Next I tried root beer.  Nope. Root beer with ice.  Nope.  Bryson made popcicles out of it.  Nope.  I tried coaxing and bribing.  Nope.  Later on that day, we tried the force method.  That resulted in her throwing up immediately afterwards.  I was kind of at a loss.

I called the doctor and was told to take a break for a day and then try again.  Okay.  So, I did.  The next day I tried cranberry juice.  Nope.  I put it in chocolate milk.  Nope.  Hot chocolate.  Nope.  Chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup.  Nope.  I tried telling her that if she wouldn't take them, we would have to go back to the hospital and maybe even get a shot.  We even got in the car.  She would give in, but before actually taking it, she would change her mind and we'd be back at square one.

So, I had a big present I had found on clearance and was saving for the girls for Christmas.  I got it out, set it up, showed her how cool it was and told her that if she would take her medicine, she could play with it and have it.  She was very excited about it, but still said, "I'll wait until Christmas to play with it."

I called the nurse and got a new prescription for the pill form of septra.  I crushed it up and put it in applesauce with a lot of cinnamon and sugar.  She took a few bites, but still said it tasted gross (by the way, I never told her when I was putting it in something).  I couldn't get her to eat any more.  She was seriously screaming crying for over an hour while I was trying to convince her that she had to eat it.

The next day, I crushed up another pill and cooked it in an omelet.  I put it in half of the omelet.  She took one bite and ran to the garbage to spit it out because it tasted gross.  She ate the other half of the omelet just fine.  I now was at a complete loss of how to get this stubborn girl to take her meds--which were now more than half gone. . .

Well, I will continue this on in another post to update you on what is happening.  On a happy note, she can't even tell when I put Miralax in her water and has had no problem with that! :)